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This Professor is Training the Public to Echolocate

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Neuroscientist Lore Thaler speaks about her efforts to make echolocation training more accessible

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At the start of 2021, five very different college campuses kicked off a program called Bridging the Gap. The program is focused on deep listening as the basis for effective communication across lines of difference. The promise of the course is that if we engage the "other," listen to all stakeholders, and lead with humility and curiosity, then we can better solve the pressing issues facing our nation.

This has been a truly unique time to try to teach bridge-building and promote the notion that the heroes are the bridge-builders. It is a tribute to the students on these very different campuses-schools as liberal as Oberlin College and as conservative as Spring Arbor University-that they have leaned into this approach and these practices at a moment when our democracy seems to be tearing itself apart.

As we wait for the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States, our country is on edge. So far, the new year has seen violence in our nation's capital, a second impeachment, and political fractures at the highest levels, further rattling a nation already pummeled by a pandemic, economic collapse, and political polarization not seen since the Civil War. There is a feeling of fear, and maybe even panic, as we hold our breath and pray for a peaceful transfer of power today.

So, in that context, it might be hard to imagine engaging in deep listening across lines of difference. It might even seem counterintuitive. There is a legitimate fear that this "other" might not just disagree with you, or even fundamentally challenge your core values-they might actually be dangerous.

Let me say off the bat that even as I advocate for the centrality of communication across lines of difference, I believe there is no place for violence in our politics. It must be rejected, safety and security re-established, the perpetrators held accountable; and those who aid and abet it must be reckoned with. Violence makes deep listening difficult, if not impossible.

And then the question remains, now what? If you aren't going engage deeply with those we might call the "other," then what is your plan? Unfriend everyone on social media who doesn't belong to your political party? Support your state in seceding from the union? Turn your home into a fortified bunker? Immigrate to Canada?

I don't put great faith in any of those solving our big problems because I believe that, underneath the multiple political crises in our country today, there is an even more foundational crisis: our lack of 100% commitment to each other's humanity and the lack of faith in people that results from that.

As Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, believes about people on death row: "They are more than the worst thing they have ever done." And so I would ask us for a moment to consider the application of that principle to these 75 million Americans who voted for Trump and the 81 million who voted for Biden. While many of us have been convinced by the wisdom that people on death row are better than their worst deed, we are still quick to condemn "those voters" as worse than their worst vote. Why have we, so far, been unwilling and unable to apply Stevenson's teaching here in the political context?

In the face of the political, economic, and cultural trends that have been heaving us in this direction for some years now, I have been inspired to return to my roots-to my deep faith in people, to a humble curiosity about why people think the way they think, to a sense of wonder as to how we construct our realities, to the brutal truth of what so many face as they try to get through each day, to the courage to meet and accept people where they are, and to the practice of deep listening.

This led me to find myself last January living in a dorm at an evangelical college. Bridging the Gap (BTG) was piloted at the beginning of 2020 with 17 students from Spring Arbor University and Oberlin College. According to the prevailing societal perceptions and stereotypes, Oberlin students are condescending, liberal snowflakes; conversely, Spring Arbor students carry the label of hate-filled, conservative evangelicals-and, according to this narrative, both should see the other as their enemy. But BTG's premise is that the heroes can be the bridge-builders. So we brought together these two groups of people, who were expected to deeply disagree with each other, to build relationships, listen deeply, and explore the very issues that might drive them apart.

Here is what I learned from my experience with them-and how I think we can scale up the project in years to come.

Learning to listen with our whole bodies

The initial invitation purposefully set the tone for the entire experience. We laid out our intention to:

take seriously what others hold dear;

be curious about why people think the way they do;

believe we are enhanced by proximity to points of view we disagree with; and,

stay open to finding common ground or, at the very least, disagreeing not with mere tolerance but with true respect and even love.

Building on this invitation, and before students from each college met, we invested in intensive skills-building, so that their eventual meeting would be profoundly different from what we've grown used to in discourse and politics.

One of the first skills we taught was "listening." While listening may seem like an obvious and easy task, the truth is very few of us have formal training in listening. And while we think it's as simple and automatic as breathing, the truth is that true listening takes training, practice, and a deep commitment.

When someone else is speaking, it's easy to daydream, plan replies, get distracted by judgment, and interrupt with self-centered questions or quick-fix solutions. Listening deeply means silencing that noise, listening not just with your ears but with every sense you've got, every cell in your body. It means listening to all that is said and unsaid, to the body language, the tone, the eye movement. It's full-body listening.

This type of listening builds trust, opens doors, and offers a path to deep discovery and a sacred connection that forms the basis for new understandings and otherwise unimaginable possibilities. Study after study shows in sector after sector-in medicine, marriage, real estate sales, and more -that true listening generates better results. And yet most of us go through our entire education without having learned how to do it.

With this foundation of intention and training, we moved into the realm of feedback. Often in efforts to bridge across deep divides, there is either a desire to avoid the "tense stuff" for fear of damaging the relationship, or to go hard at the most fraught areas to prove our own commitments and defend deeply held values.

The BTG project model resisted both urges. Our approach was to invest in the relationships, knowing that the capacity to disagree constructively is directly tied to the strength of the relationship. So, we didn't tackle the hardest things first-but we were also totally up front that we aren't afraid of those things and don't mean to sweep them under the rug. We promised that the group would come to them, in time. We also taught an approach to giving feedback that distinguished between experience and interpretation. This approach emphasizes disclosure rather than accusation, and it offers a common framework that supports participants having hard conversations in a structured manner where everyone knows how to engage.

We also stayed away from the most common tools used in debates or disagreements, which is to throw out statistics and facts to prove a point. Instead, BTG used storytelling as a way of going deeper and diffusing tensions that might cause someone to get locked into their position. Our goal was to open up space for the type of dynamic tension that can create motion and unleash new and positive energy.

Storytelling is a way to express beliefs and where they come from, humanizing a potential "opponent" in our eyes and vice versa. We kept it simple but taught that good storytelling includes telling your story like a good play, in three acts:

meet the characters;

understand the challenge or conflict;

seek the resolution.

Additionally, we encouraged students to show and not just tell. For instance, not just saying "the movie was funny," but sharing a line that actually made you laugh.

Meeting with the "other"

The encounter is where the rubber hit the road! This is when the students met and applied all the skills they'd learned about how to build bridges, communicate constructively, and cultivate relationships with the "other."

What underpinned this phase were a handful of crucial and, perhaps, unorthodox principles. To begin, we decided to start with values and stories, rather than immediately taking on a hot-button issue, to get to know the person across the table. We encouraged students to learn about each other's background and to try and understand what makes them tick, whose shoulders they stand on, and why they see the world the way they do.

In fact, in our first group activity, we used 21/64's deck of 50 Picture Your LegacyTM cards with images on them and asked the students to sort through them to find the three images that most reflect the values they try to live by and the way they try to lead their lives. Then we asked them to find the three cards that resonated least with their values and how they try to lead their lives. The students shared their top and bottom cards with the group, and they worked together to look for areas of alignment or disagreement, seek out patterns, and try to get to know each other at the level of values.

We also made sure participants were staying in motion. These issues are big, they're complex, and they're stuck. We strongly believe that physically keeping things moving could help make students feel more open and receptive to different beliefs and opinions. We also made sure to mix up the groups and their sizes, composition, and dynamics. This helped keep the positive energy alive without leaving anyone trapped in a dead-end conversation.

Many experts agree that upwards of 80% of all communication is nonverbal. So, we wanted to include exercises that allowed students to express themselves without speaking, especially when we were beginning to tackle more divisive topics.

For instance, we wanted to explore where there were strong, divergent opinions and even sharp disagreements. To do this, we used an activity called "Lay It on the Line," where we would start with a statement, such as "I believe in each American citizen's unrestricted right to bear arms." Students would then physically, and silently, position themselves along a spectrum with "strongly agree" on one end and "strongly disagree" on the other. This nonverbal, but revealing, exercise gave us insight into where there may be great (and surprising) splits. We could start to explore those gaps without locking into a debate-style format. Students observed their peers moving in unexpected ways, patterns were upended just as they were revealed, and gradations were stark just as we moved quickly through the questions before labels could take hold.

As mentioned, we were not trying to approach this project using the standard format and techniques-we know that hasn't worked so far. We wanted to set up conversations with unusual and unexpected content. Our approach was to selectively tackle controversial issues head-on.

For example, we showed a film called Belief, where people as diverse as New York Times columnist David Brooks, Megan Phelps-Roper (granddaughter of the founder of Westboro Baptist Church), and Illyasa Shabazz (daughter of Malcolm X) shared their relationship to belief, love, God, and the soul. The speakers had competing perspectives, and afterward we asked students to break into small groups to "share a time when your beliefs informed a private decision in your life." After some discussion of the private realm, then we turned to the public square and asked, "How does your belief system influence your positions on important public policy issues?"

In a group of Christians and non-Christians, this was potentially quite divisive territory. But these discussions were set up as an invitation to reflect on beliefs, and the role of beliefs in constructing worldview and the "why?" underneath stances on issues. Perhaps as a result, they did not become arguments. Instead, the conversations were places for students to disclose how they think and convey their truths. Those truths then interacted with other different truths and the complexity of who we are was revealed.

From listening to policy

The last phase of the program was to bring the skills and the encounter to bear on a pressing and contentious policy issue to see what might be possible when we apply this approach.

We selected criminal justice and utilized the BTG multi-stakeholder approach. Just as we had skillfully encountered "the other" in the second phase of the program, now we encountered all sorts of "others" as we met with stakeholders from across the criminal justice system. Corrections officers to people who are incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and the corrections officer's union, the reform advocates to the head of the Department of Corrections, the legislators who approve the budget for corrections-we met them all.

It was not lost on students that these stakeholders don't ever sit down all together and that their caricatures of each other can often be quite limiting, especially as they seek political and policy solutions to complex problems.

Students quickly understood that you are only enhanced, not diminished, by hearing from the full range of stakeholders, even if you deeply disagree with their perspective. It became clear that when you miss an important stakeholder's voice, it not only generates resistance from those who feel left out, and may be crucial to successful implementation, but results in blind spots as you miss key factors and interests in the system as it is.

And, most importantly, you might well miss deeply buried opportunities for common ground where the most unlikely of allies might discover that, even if they don't like each other, they have common interests.

Through the policy-application phase and up until their final presentations, the students kept encountering these opportunities. If our criminal justice system is failing with both painfully high recidivism rates among those who are incarcerated and the highest suicide rates of any profession among those who work in prisons, then shouldn't the fact that the system is killing the two largest stakeholder groups be a first step toward common ground?

Listening over the long run

I, too, stand stunned from time to time while listening to "the other side." Often, they seem to live in a completely different country from the one I live in.

But then I have to remind myself that this is deeper work and it is not short-term. It's not a quick fix. It's not for the faint of heart. I don't honestly know what will stop our country from convulsing its way to civil war. I really don't. But my gut keeps reminding me, even when I get angry and want to write people off, that winning elections, while it matters, won't solve this crisis, and shouting "them" down won't turn us around. I have to believe that it is the deeper work that is required of us in this moment.

President Biden has rightly called for a renewed spirit of unity. But he, and we, will be hard-pressed to achieve it with the country divided into two warring factions where neither side thinks the other has much to offer.

Even worse, our culture now appears to hold that listening to the other side, really listening, is considered a waste of time, at best, and at worst an act of infidelity or high treason. Today, these are particularly tough things to write, and surely to do, as we must bring to justice those who use violence to threaten our democracy but not demonize everyone we disagree with. If we make the entire opposition into a monolith and demonize them along the way, we ensure that this vicious cycle continues.

To get beyond this crippling divisiveness, we must seek out a deeper understanding of the call for unity, the spirit of unity, the intention of unity. It isn't that the intention is wrong, far from it. The problem is that unity fails when it is understood solely as an intention. Unity must not be just a principle. Unity must be a practice.

Bridging the Gap is about practice, more than it's about language or beliefs. If we are going to find unity again in our country, we need to practice it. Those who practice it we call bridge-builders. When they are viewed as our heroes, not the sell-outs or villains, then our culture will be well on its way to repair and healing. The good news is that more and more college students are hungry for it.
Watch the full, newly released film about Bridging the Gap.
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At the start of 2021, five very different college campuses kicked off a program called Bridging the Gap. The program is focused on deep listening as the basis for effective communication across lines of difference.

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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Tools

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GIVE Skill - Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Tools

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Learn more about Dialectical Behavior Therapy tools.

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Embracing the Calm: How Animals Naturally Practice Meditation - Michael R. Burke

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Learn how animals naturally practice meditation and how animal communicators and pet psychics translate these moments of calm to enhance our own tranquility.

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles

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There is a great deal of research into mindfulness meditation and its benefits. In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), mindfulness skills are considered the core component of improved emotion regulation. DBT mindfulness is taught and reviewed throughout the treatment, and mindfulness begins each skills training session. This is because all of the other emotion regulation skills in DBT hinge on being able to practice DBT mindfulness. Despite this central position of DBT mindfulness among DBT skills, its function to reduce emotional sensitivity and regulate emotions is often misunderstood.

What Is DBT Mindfulness?

In a nutshell, the term mindfulness refers to the practice of bringing one's mind to the present moment. Put another way, mindfulness is the technique of recognizing when the mind is caught up in a thought and drawing it back to the present experience. DBT mindfulness adds another dimension to the traditional practice of mindfulness: mindfulness without judgment. By practicing non-judgmental present-focused awareness, you are able to attend to thoughts, feelings, and behaviors without engaging in the self-invalidation responsible for persistent emotion dysregulation.

It sounds simple, but most people spend a very small portion of their day mindfully engaged in their lives. We usually tune out our actual experience and get distracted by thoughts about our experience. Most of us get so conditioned to engaging with our thoughts rather than with reality, it is very easy for us to lose sight of what is actually happening to us and, consequently, how best to handle what is happening to us.

How Does Mindfulness fit into DBT and CBT?

Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a treatment that targets emotion dysregulation. Often, people get emotionally dysregulated by seemingly insignificant or trivial events, not because of the events themselves but by the judgments people have about the events. For example, you may have a job that you are reasonably happy in. Let's say it's working at a clothing store. You like clothes, and you like interacting with people, so it seems like a good fit. What you don't like, however, is folding clothes. You find it boring. Now, you may only have to fold clothes for about 30 minutes of a six-hour shift, which is really just a small portion of the job. You may find that as you fold clothes, your mind starts to make all kinds of negative judgments about folding clothes. "This is terrible." "What a waste of time." "This is stupid." "This job is awful." Rather than spending the time focusing on folding the clothes, your mind is busy telling all kinds of disturbing stories about this task and will likely trigger emotions such as anger, resentment, and even despair. What's worse, these emotions have a way of coloring the rest of your day. Now, instead of tolerating 30 minutes of an unpleasant chore, you spend the whole day in a foul mood, judging all aspects of your job negatively, feeling worse every minute. Because being in a bad mood for most of the day, more days than not, is very unpleasant, you start having judgments about your mood, thinking, "I can't take this anymore." So, what started out as a relatively insignificant thing has caused a lot of suffering.

A mindful approach to this dilemma would be to approach the unpleasant task in the spirit of acceptance, willing to engage in it without engaging in a lot of judgments about it. The moment you notice a judgment, you turn your mind to folding the clothes, aware of the sensation of the fabric against your fingertips. Noticing the movement of your arms. Describing the smell of the new fabric as it reaches your nose in waves. By fully engaging in the task and repeatedly turning the mind to it, there is little room for negative attributions. You may now even find it to be a calming, soothing activity. This is one way mindfulness can help avert an emotional downward spiral.

Mindfulness can also be effective in helping us make the best decisions. People with pervasive emotion dysregulation often have histories full of others invalidating their wants, needs, thoughts, and feelings. Over time, persistent invalidation from the outside nourishes invalidation on the inside. After a while, people with emotion dysregulation learn to invalidate their own experience, having learned it was wrong, bad, or dangerous for some reason. People who get good at invalidating themselves tend to lose touch with their own experience. They no longer consider their own opinions. They no longer know where to find their own intuition. Consequently, self-invalidators live lives inconsistent with their own values and dreams. They don't find it important when their needs are being sacrificed for those of someone else. All of this results in people who do not do what is best for themselves, which is a hard way to live life. As a result, they are unhappier and thus more prone to becoming emotionally dysregulated.

Finally, mindfulness can help with emotional dysregulation by way of helping to relinquish the struggle with painful emotions. One of the reasons people develop emotion dysregulation is because they try to quash or control their emotional responses to things. Trying to control an emotion is kind of like trying to grab tightly onto jello. The more you try, the more of a mess it makes. With emotions, the more we try to control them, the more intense they become, and the longer they persist. Unfortunately, due to an environment plagued by invalidation from others, there is pressure from the outside to control the emotions, leading to more intense emotions, leading to more invalidation, etc. This tends to become a self-perpetuating feedback loop.

Mindfully experiencing emotions is the opposite of the control strategy. With mindfulness, you simply observe what comes up with the emotion. You notice a feeling of your face flushed. You notice a lump in your throat. You notice all of the experiences that are the emotion, and you do so not with the intention of suppressing them, but in the service of accepting each and every one of them unconditionally. There is an old expression that you can't argue with an emotion. This is because the emotion is there for a reason, so the best one can do is tolerate it without holding on or pushing away. It is a paradoxical approach, but the end result is emotional experiences that are less disturbing and of shorter duration. The emotions naturally go just as they came. Giving them permission to be there lets emotions take their natural course as fleeting, changing, dynamic sensations.

These are some of the main reasons mindfulness is relied on so heavily in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. There are many other uses of mindfulness in the treatment. In fact, as mentioned earlier, every skill relies on a foundation of mindfulness, so there are as many uses of mindfulness as there are skills, and then some.

One of the most important points about mindfulness practice is that it is very difficult. Our brains are hardwired to make judgments, time travel, and create stories. In a way, working to be mindful is working against the biology of our brains. No one is perfect at this. Luckily, there is no need to be perfect at it. We can experience the real benefit of mindfulness when we notice we are not being mindful and choose to turn our minds back to the now. That is the power of mindfulness: recognizing when we are not mindful. If we get distracted a thousand times, we have a thousand opportunities to notice and shift our attention. It's a bit like fly fishing. Your mind casts its line to far-flung places when you are distracted, and then you reel it back in when you reorient your mind to the present. And like fly fishing, this process occurs again and again. Numerous times in the course of one minute. And the more we practice, the easier it becomes to recognize when the mind has left the building. And with each time we practice, we gain a little more clarity and control.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles is a therapy practice of expert psychologists with the highest level of training and experience in providing evidence-based treatment. Click the button below to ask a question or schedule a consultation to determine whether CBT is right for you.

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Mindfulness from a DBT Perspective - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles

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Mindfulness is a core component of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Learn what it is and how to do it here.

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PNAS has a long history of presenting research results relating to human evolution, including numerous breakthroughs in paleoanthropology, especially as they pertain to the evolution of Pliocene-Pleistocene and early hominins. PNAS readers are far less familiar, however, with the remarkably dynamic record of biological change, adaptation, stressors, and circumstances that have altered the behavior and well-being of Homo sapiens over the course of the most recent 12,000 y of human evolution, one of the most dynamic periods of human adaptation and evolution and the remarkable challenges to health and wellbeing. Based on the study of human remains from Holocene settings and the associated contexts of diet, behavior, and lifestyle, this set of Perspectives and Research Articles provides readers with new and emerging insights into the human condition and what has shaped human biology, health, and lifestyle over the course of the last 10 or so millennia. This record makes clear that human evolution and biological change, adaptation, exposure to long-standing and newly emerging infectious diseases, population demography, and warfare have continued in important ways over the course of the last 10 millennia, leading to the conditions associated with overpopulation, undernutrition, violence, and other circumstances we face globally today.

Among the most impactful dietary and behavioral transitions in hominin evolution-along with the control of fire, use of tools, and hunting-was the shift from a subsistence strategy based on foraging for wild food resources to a lifeway fueled by the production and consumption of domesticated plants and animals. The shift from foraging to farming, beginning some 12,000 or so years ago, changed everything. Today, our foods are derived almost entirely from domesticated resources. Among other impacts, the reliance on domesticated resources fueled increasing global population and a shifting of human settlement from a mostly transitory to an exclusively sedentary existence. The transition from foraging to farming had, and will continue to have, profound implications for world health, growth and development, well-being, behavior, conflict, and virtually every aspect of our individual lives now and going forward. Dependence on domesticated resources for our diet and nutrition has had considerable influence on our evolution, health, and well-being as pertaining to exposure to long-existing and emerging novel pathogens, resource availability and quality of nutrition, and migration and mobility patterns ( 1, 2).

The Agricultural Transition

At various times and in various settings, the transition to and adoption of farming as a central element of resource acquisition has contributed to increased intra- and intercommunity and regional competition for resources, sometimes leading to outright violence and warfare, patterns of behavior that will continue well into the future of our planet. Bioarchaeology, the contextualized study of human remains from archaeological settings, has taken a lead role in documenting and interpreting the record of health, well-being, and lifestyle impacts on our lives today ( 3- 5).

The earliest archaeological record of the transition from foraging to farming was in the Levant region of the Eastern Mediterranean basin beginning approximately 12,000 y ago ( 6). Across the world, the more than eight billion of us alive today are dependent on domesticated foods, both plants and animals. This dependence focuses heavily on domesticated plant carbohydrates, but with considerable variation in access to quality nutrition. In this regard, the world's three so-called superfoods-rice, wheat, and maize-fuel the majority of all human energy requirements today, especially where persons and communities have limited access to animal sources of protein.

The archaeological record documents the appearance of independent centers of plant and animal domestication first in Southwest Asia. However, domestication centers also developed in many other settings globally, including across Asia, Africa, New Guinea, North America, and South America ( 6- 9). Early farmers sustained their dietary and nutritional needs from domesticated food sources, but only in part. That partial focus has long since ended so that virtually everyone across the globe relies heavily on farming-based food sources-both plants and animals-for their energy requirements and survival.

Many authorities view the transition from foraging to farming as a long process taking upward of several thousand years in some settings. However, in terms of the six or so million years of hominin evolution, the transition from foraging to farming is an eye-blink in time. By every measure, the agricultural transition and the accompanying onset of the Anthropocene have played central roles in shaping health and its challenges, increasing conflict and competition for territory, access to key foods and other resources, rising levels of infectious disease, behavioral adaptations involving reduced physical activity and mobility, migration, permanent or near-permanent settlement, and the threat of or engagement in inter- and intracommunity violence and warfare ( 1, 10).

Contributors to this PNAS Special Feature present analyses of the bioarchaeological record and of the foraging to farming transition involving a growing commitment to, and full dependence on, farming (e.g., maize in the Western Hemisphere, wheat in Europe and Asia, and rice in Asia). This Special Feature focusses on bioarchaeology, a field pertaining to the contextualized, biocultural study of human remains from archaeological settings ( 11). This large and growing record provides the context for all our lives today, especially our lifestyle, health, and diet. The shift in foodways from ones based on hunted, gathered, or collected resources to those based on farming in such a brief span of time resulted in a pattern of insufficient nutrition and other significant health challenges owing to the kinds and quality of foods we eat ( 12).

The transition from nondomesticated to domesticated foods. shaped our past and present worlds beginning at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition during a period of dramatic warming globally and ecosystem change and including many independent centers that first arose in Southwest Asia and then in a range of centers globally ( 13). With the appearance of numerous domestication centers in Asia, Africa, and North and South America, farming spread rapidly and widely. By most measures-rising population size, appearance of new and growing population centers, challenging dietary transitions, and infectious disease exposure and increasing negative health outcomes-the agricultural transition and the accompanying onset of the Anthropocene have formed who we are in the twenty-first century. Recent and newly emerging analyses of the record of health, diet, biological relationships, migration patterns, dietary adaptations, activity, and lifestyle reveal that the growing commitment to, and dependence on, farming beginning at the Holocene-Pleistocene boundary was as impactful-if not more so-than any other dietary development or behavioral transition related to the food quest and acquisition of resources generally. In large measure, the last 10,000 to 12,000 y have had profound implications for who are today and in every part of our lives.

Domestication led to a transformation in the kinds of foods humans acquired involved fundamental changes, including a shift from broad dietary diversity to a reliance on, and commitment to nutritionally limited food staples, notably domesticated plant carbohydrates; food sources having reduced nutritional quality; and reduced access to animal sources of protein. Combined with origins and rise of social inequality, the increasing reliance on domesticated plant carbohydrates beginning at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition has resulted in today's striking reduction in access to adequate nutrition for most of the world's population, now at over eight billion persons. In addition to undernutrition, urban environments and greater interconnectivity of people have resulted in unprecedented challenges, predictably along social lines, from exposure to both long-standing and newly emerging pathogens that cause acute and chronic infectious diseases. The threat of such diseases was underscored globally via illness, disability, and loss of life associated with the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. It was just one of the viral infectious diseases that have emerged in the last several decades, and is a predictable outcome related to remarkable increases in population size and density, the growing number of large, settled communities, and intercontinental contact. These consequences are exacerbated by the impacts of global warming, also a long-term outcome of technological changes due in part to the use of fossil fuels that drive the agricultural industry globally. The development of new landscapes for the transmission of pathogenic microbes, conditions leading to inadequate diet and nutrition, and other challenges that began with early farming and permanent settlement at 10 or so millennia ago will continued unabated. In particular, the threat of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases is likely to dominate our lives for the foreseeable future.

This Special Feature underscores the central point that the transition from foraging to farming is a critically important period in the history of our species, a development underpinning the remarkable increase in global population from 10 million in the later Pleistocene ( 14) to the present-day eight billion. Largely fueled by shifting patterns in population fertility and mortality, once small, sedentary communities grew to large and densely crowded, farming-based settlements, especially with the eventual development of urban centers having thousands of individuals ( 10). This demographic transformation created the circumstances ideally suited for the evolution and transmission of pathogens, including but not limited to infectious diseases that have profoundly impacted societies globally up to the present day (e.g., tuberculosis, treponematosis, dental caries, periodontitis, malaria, leprosy, parasitic infections, and many others).

The links between population, health, and well-being for the last 12 millennia are based on an extensive and growing bioarchaeological record focusing on health, nutrition, and behavioral transformations in farming settings. Research programs and a rapidly expanding literature pertaining to many parts of the world describe and interpret the costs, consequences, and social and behavioral outcomes of the foraging-to-farming transition and food-production intensification. This record places humans in the larger context they play in transforming their environmental, health, and behavioral worlds, much of which has led to the profound challenges we face in the twenty-first century.

The Special Feature contributions focus on dietary and inadequate nutritional quality, resource inequality, conflict and warfare, climate change, population trends, demographic transitions, migration, mobility, and human biology. The research by biological anthropologists includes diverse investigations of ancient genomics and genetics, reconstruction of diet and ecology, and morphological variation as it pertains to growth and development and temporal shifts in disease and other circumstances. Building on earlier studies, the results of recent research are providing a growing understanding of both the adaptations and the costs in health and security associated with the transition from hunter-gatherer lifeways to farming.

This Special Feature

Over the course of the planning and development this Special Feature, all of us involved have been struck by the remarkable challenges faced by past people. The world's challenges today derive in part from food choices dominated by domesticated plant carbohydrates and their products; diminishing access of quality diets; the emergence of, and exposure to, novel pathogens and evolution of long-existing pathogens; and an increasing frequency of epidemics and pandemics in the twenty-first century, such as those caused by the RNA viruses, including ebolaviruses, Zika virus, and especially the pandemic-causing SARS-CoV-2 viruses ( 15, 16). Although Ebola, Zika, and numerous other infectious diseases have caused dramatic health challenges globally, most thus far have not had the profoundly devastating outcomes as COVID-19, which resulted in illness in the tens of millions of infected individuals and millions of deaths globally ( 17). These circumstances and challenges pertaining to the last 10,000 y of human evolution and the environmental and economic stress associated with global warming, arable soil depletion, forest clearance, and a profoundly and remarkable population increase and rising density speak to the importance of sustainability, food availability, access to quality nutrition, and health going forward. The current growth rate is not the first time humans have grappled with the stresses of overpopulation. Indeed, the archaeological record shows the challenges of overly dense population centers regarding rise in infectious diseases and intracommunity and intercommunity conflict.

This Special Feature introduces the broad patterns of health and well-being based on the bioarchaeological record. In Perspective 1, Robbins Schug et al. ( 18) make the case that climate change and its impact on health and well-being extends far back into prehistory. Epidemiological evidence drawn from archaeological contexts reveals that communities responded to environmental challenges in diverse ways, with important implications for dietary sufficiency, disease ecology, migration, and interpersonal violence. Robbins Schug et al.'s discussion underscores the important point that social inequality and unequal access to resources is the biggest epidemiological threat in the face of climate change. Communities that had sufficient access to resources had less experience with violence than those with insufficient resources ( 19). Importantly, there is considerable community variation in the record of violence depending on the duration and severity of drought and the sociopolitical means of dealing with it.

Milner and Boldsen ( 20) address the dramatic rise in population over the course of the Holocene, a development tied to key dietary transitions associated with the foraging-to-farming transition that included a growing reliance on carbohydrate-rich domesticated plants (e.g., maize). In eastern North America, the long road to agriculture was a stepwise development accompanied by changes in age-dependent mortality. Their findings reveal a demographic signal matching other areas of the world at the time of newly emerging agricultural societies ( 21). Changes in demographic regimes linked to the kind of food sources available, primarily storable domesticated plants and other food products derived from farming. In short, population and subsistence histories are closely aligned.

A fundamental question about the origin of farming practices and languages, namely Were agricultural practices spread via migration of early farmers who brought their languages and social and cultural practices, sharing them with the communities they encountered? Alternatively, did foraging communities adopt farming and languages from nearby farmers? These questions, once unresolvable, are now tractable, via genetic analyses. In Perspective 2, Stoneking and collaborators ( 22) develop a broad genomic survey of Africa, Europe, Central and South Asia, East Asia and Mainland Southeast Asia, Island Southeast Asia and Oceania, and the Americas, documenting a complex picture of Holocene human dispersals. Although much remains to be learned, migration and dispersal analyses are becoming increasingly informed by large-scale genomic analyses.

Scaling down to a single setting, Çatalhöyük, a permanent Neolithic settlement housing some 5000 to 8000 persons at its peak occupation, is among the most comprehensively documented early farming communities in Western Asia ( 10). The setting marks the end of societies engaged in primarily hunting-and-gathering and living in small impermanent communities and a shift to settlements involving significant growth and permanent residency. These communities were inhabited by hundreds to thousands of individuals who focused on farming-wheat, barley, and rye-as dietary mainstays. Pearson et al. ( 23) address mechanisms associated with kinship in these early farming contexts. Their analysis of strontium and oxygen isotopes from tooth enamel of early farmers associated with the earlier community of Pınarbaşı and later communities of Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük reveals that Çatalhöyük is the only settlement to show the presence of nonlocals. These findings point to continuity and diversity in kinship, especially regarding unique social and biological kinship identities, laying the foundation for kinship and community organization in later societies of western Asia.

Lewis et al. ( 24) make the compelling case that changes in settlement involved population increase and density, thereby creating the ideal macro- and microecological conditions for the origins and spread of opportunistic pathogens. These observations for past populations are now well documented for large, densely crowded, early farming communities ( 3). Especially important are the common zoonotic diseases that can be transmitted from vertebrate animals to people. Owing to the climate stability, warm temperatures, loss of dietary breadth, and a suite of other vulnerabilities in the Holocene, Lewis et al. identify key elements and the context for an increased disease burden in early settled communities. The bioarchaeology of infectious disease provides us with an important picture of morbidity and health crises, especially those relating to chronic conditions in early farming communities.

Remarkable increases in population and intercommunity competition for access to arable land by early farmers are now well documented for a wide range of settings globally. Yet rarely is there the opportunity to meld context with outcomes in a part of the world where the investigation of warfare has depth and breadth. Neolithic Northwestern Europe is among the most comprehensively documented settings of conflict that involved multiple groups competing for arable land and other resources. The emergence of animal and plant domestication, sedentism, population increase, and competition for arable land and other resources presents us with the context for the rise of interpersonal violence and warfare in Europe. Some 10% of individuals documented by Fibiger et al. ( 25) died from traumatic injuries in early farming communities across the western and central Europe. Their analysis reveals that violence in Neolithic Europe was endemic and was scaling upward, resulting in patterns of warfare leading to increasing numbers of deaths.

Although crop production was central to acquisition of food, dairying-and especially milk production-was a key element of domestication in Europe, Asia, and Africa. As with all other circumstances associated with the foraging to farming transition, there was considerable regional biological variation. Stock and collaborators ( 26) address the impact of dairying via their analysis of human stature and body mass based on an unprecedented number of individuals and sites encompassing seven regions globally where domestication involved dairying and crop production. Presence of whey protein in dental calculus ( 27) shows the earliest evidence of milk consumption at 5,000 yBP in northern Europe. It denotes lactase persistence, the genetic variant that identifies adaptation to consumption of milk as a protein source.

Conclusions

In evolutionary terms, the transition at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary was extraordinary, especially in consideration of the beginning of a fundamental shift in dietary focus and the downstream effects of diets based on domesticated plants and animals. The transition provided the context for a remarkable increase in population. However, the costs for that success-elevated levels infectious diseases, undernutrition, and conflict-are still with us today. Our species will continue to adapt, to develop strategies for success, and to mitigate challenges. That is what we do. Once we began the shift to and intensification of farming, the remarkable changes seen in humans became critically important developments in recent human evolution. In view of conditions today, including climate change, overpopulation, and the rise in prevalence of infectious diseases, both old and newly emerging, it should come as no surprise that dependence on a few staple crops and shift to sedentary behavior will be with us for the foreseeable future. They are, after all, a legacy of our past, and forming and sharing of the dietary framework, behavioral patterns, and outcomes in health and well-being for all eight billion of us that occupy the world today.

Acknowledgments

All of us involved in this Special Feature are indebted to Owen Lovejoy for his support in the preparation and submission of research articles and perspectives. We are indebted to the reviewers for their recommendations. Their input was enormously helpful to both the authors and to me in my role as editor.

Author contributions

C.S.L. wrote the paper.

Competing interest

The author declares no competing interest.

References

16. Adam D., COVID's true death toll: Much higher than official records. Nature 603, 562 (2022). [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

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The past 12,000 years of behavior, adaptation, population, and evolution shaped who we are today

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PNAS has a long history of presenting research results relating to human evolution, including numerous breakthroughs in paleoanthropology, especially as they pertain to the evolution of Pliocene-Pleistocene and early hominins.

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Exploring Manta Rays’ Feeding Strategies in the Maldives

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Delve into the fascinating feeding strategies of manta rays in Maldives. Learn about their unique behaviors and the mechanisms they employ to capture their food.

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MANTA RAYS FEEDING STRATEGIES IN MALDIVES

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Addressing food insecurity within marginalized communities is not a charitable act-it's a foundational step in creating equity and promoting justice. For generations, the Black community has demonstrated resilience and empowerment through food initiatives, offering invaluable lessons in mutual aid and collective care.

History of Mutual Aid Led by Black Communities

The Black community's fight for equality and dignity has always involved collective strategies, with food often at the center of mutual aid efforts.

During the period of enslavement, day-to-day acts of resistance , especially for women, often centered around food production and preparation. Feigning incompetence in food preparation became a common tactic: deliberately burning food, preparing meals slowly, or cooking poorly to frustrate enslavers. In some cases, food was even poisoned as a form of rebellion, making enslavers ill. Adherence to traditional cooking methods and ingredients, what we would call culturally appropriate food, also provided communities with an opportunity to retain their individual, familial and cultural identities, which in and of itself is a form of protest and empowerment.

During Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, when systemic racism denied Black Americans access to adequate economic opportunities, education, and basic services, they created support systems rooted in cooperation and self-determination. Food sharing and communal kitchens became essential tools for survival.

Black mutual aid organizations and community groups , many of which dated to the eighteenth century, served as important support systems for the community. They provided everything from death benefits to hunger relief, fostering resilience in the face of exclusion from mainstream economic systems.

Urban gardens flourished in backyards and empty lots, providing fresh produce for families and strengthening community bonds.

Black women, in particular, played crucial roles in sustaining these mutual aid networks. They organized food drives, led community cooking efforts, and ensured that neighbors in need were cared for. Historical examples like Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farm Cooperative in the 1960s highlighted how these grassroots efforts not only alleviated hunger but also promoted economic empowerment and self-determination.

Food Rescue: A Community-Driven Solution

412 Food Rescue - Food Rescue Hero's founding food rescue organization - honors and embraces these lessons from Black-led food justice movements, recognizing that mutual aid and community-driven solutions are essential to achieving food security and equity. With ten years of service to the Greater Pittsburgh community, 412 Food Rescue continues its mission to expand food access and nutrition security to Western Pennsylvania neighborhoods identified as highest need based on local levels of food insecurity and food deserts.

Through ongoing partnerships and conversations with the communities it serves, 412 Food Rescue ensures that its efforts reflect the needs and priorities of those most impacted by food insecurity.

The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh, whose primary residents were reported in 2019 to be 90% minorities, saw a dramatic shift in food access after working with 412 Food Rescue. Within the first year of the partnership, housing staff reported that calls from residents asking for food assistance dropped from dozens per week to zero.

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Food as Power: Lessons in Mutual Aid from Black-Led Food Justice Movements - Food Rescue Hero

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Food Rescue Hero is thrilled to announce that Feed Tahoe has joined the Food Rescue Hero Network! Now, residents in the South Lake Tahoe region can use the Food Rescue Hero app or visit feedtahoe.org to join the mission of rescuing food and fighting hunger in their community.

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Sleep Hygiene Protocol

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Photographs by Erin Ashe & Ryan Tidman

We all have our cetacean story - the first moment we discover that these magical beings exist.

Maybe we read about a whale or are lucky enough to see one in the wild. Maybe we see a distant blow on the horizon and that's it. The philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, "The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are always inaccessible." This statement could easily be applied to whales and dolphins. My cetacean story involves seeing killer whales when I was four years old. My aunt woke me early one morning to join her, while we listened to the powerful blows of an orca family travelling slowly through the fog in the waters below her clifftop home. After the whales disappeared around the point, my questions began. Who are they? How do they live their lives? What do they eat? Where do they go? This is how my fascination began.

Fifteen years ago, on a whim, I hopped on a float plane from Seattle to the Broughton Archipelago in Canada with Rob Williams, a fellow marine biologist. We took off together and flew high above the waters of the Salish Sea, but low enough to watch a pod of southern resident killer whales making their way to Georgia Strait. We continued northward over Vancouver Island before reaching a remote island only accessible by boat, where Rob had built a cabin. The next day, we set out in his small boat to shop for groceries on the island next door. As I looked to the east, I saw a wall of water that made me think a squall was coming. Rob put my mind at ease by saying, "Cool! Lags!" I didn't let on that I had no idea what Lags were. I waited with binoculars ready until I could see hundreds of dolphins thundering across the strait. Their sleek grey and white bodies caught air as they porpoised through the water. This motion created the white water I'd mistaken for a squall. As I scoured field guides later, I realised they were Pacific white-sided dolphins ( Lagenorhynchus obliquidens, fondly known as lags). That moment of anticipation, discovery, and awe is present each time I encounter Pacific white-sided dolphins.

At a glance, you could tell that the life-history of these dolphins reflects the power that comes from numbers and speed. Travelling in a large group can offer an advantage when detecting clever predators or finding patchily distributed prey, especially in the open ocean. The open ocean is where one expects to find Pacific white-sided dolphins. For years, during the 1970s and 1980s, Pacific white-sided dolphins were the victims of the high-seas drift net fishery that left thousands upon thousands of miles of fine fishing net to drift, unmonitored, and largely unobserved. The intended targets were squid and salmon, but the nets easily entangled dolphins. The practice also separated dolphin mothers and calves, and mortally wounded or drowned hundreds of thousands of Pacific white-sided dolphins before the practice was finally banned by the United Nations in the early 1990s. This was one of the reasons I was surprised to see oceanic dolphins in the inshore waters of British Columbia (BC) in the Broughton Archipelago, where even salty mariners can get lost in the vast, foggy maze of islands and endless, winding fjords. But I had studied Alexandra Morton's book, Listening to Whales, very carefully and knew that First Nations Middens kept an archaeological record and told their story.

At a glance, you could tell that the life-history of these dolphins reflects the power that comes from numbers and speed.

For thousands of years, Pacific white-sided dolphins have played a vital role in this ecosystem. As I worked on studies of northern and southern resident killer whales, I was struck by a huge contrast. Researchers had been photographing killer whales in the Pacific Northwest since the early 1970s and were able to identify individuals by unique natural markings in their dorsal fins and patterns of the grey-white saddle just behind the fin. Thanks to their devotion to this painstaking task of cataloguing each pod, family, and individual, we now know when the population of killer whales increases or decreases by one individual. But, what about Pacific white-sided dolphins and other cetaceans of the world? How would we know whether human activities like the high-seas drift net fishery tipped the dolphins over the edge into an unsustainable decline toward extinction?

Globally, bycatch in fishing nets is responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of dolphins and small whales, but we don't read about it in the paper as we do here in the Pacific Northwest each time we lose an orca. But, knowing how many individuals are in a population and whether that population is going up or down is fundamental to protecting biodiversity on this planet. I went to graduate school at the University of St. Andrews to learn the math and statistics required to answer some of these questions. I used Pacific white-sided dolphins to hone my skills, but my aim has always been to apply some of these lessons to conserving small cetaceans in other parts of the world. Alexandra Morton had been collecting photographs of killer whales, but also began a catalogue of dolphin photographs in the 1990s. She shared her catalogue and the benefit of a historical record. I built on that foundation and have added ten years of photo-identification to the non-invasive, long-term ecological study I now lead.

With the cabin as our cost-effective base of operations, we set out in our small boat to add contemporary sightings to this record with photographs. As Alexandra had assured us, the key to building a career in this underfunded field is to put yourself in the path of whales and dolphins, and the rest will fall into place. Before our daughter was born, there was only a fuzzy boundary between fieldwork and our home lives. Between field efforts, I would return to Scotland to continue my studies and turn these photographs into data. Although I'd been doing fieldwork for years, on my first day as officially registered as a PhD student, we witnessed the ecosystem in action. On a misty November morning, we spotted a group of about 500 dolphins feeding in a deep, glacial fjord in the Broughton Archipelago. It was fall, when giant, silvery spheres of herring collect in bait balls. The dolphins have perfected a coordinated dance to corral and exploit this valuable, fatty prey. Herring, we think, explain why the dolphins are here. Although unpredictable in abundance, the local spawning areas and stocks are reliable, or at least they used to be. We set about the task of photographing all 500. When I first began photographing these dolphins, I could fall into the trap of becoming distracted by hundreds of fins breaking the surface of the water. Focus is vital. There is a wonderful word in the Canadian Inuktitut language, called "Puijilittatu," which means, "He does not know which way to turn because of the many seals he has seen come to surface." I could relate.

For thousands of years, Pacific white-sided dolphins have played a vital role in this ecosystem.

One of the group engaged in a series what seemed like hundreds of leaps, each ending with a thunderous splash on its side. In an instant, the dolphins disappeared underwater. I glanced over my shoulder to see a giant killer whale fly through the air, arc, and dive into the water. The dolphins fled. I could see now that it was a group of five killer whales. Somehow, they had hidden in the propeller wash of our boat. With two killer whale researchers on board, we'd simply missed more than 10 tonnes of orca in our wake. The whales herded a group of dolphins nimbly, neatly, and expertly into a small cul-de-sac of a bay. The largest male attacked from below and launched a panicked dolphin into the air, and then dove back on top of the dolphin, delivering a final blow. I could subtract one dolphin from my population estimate. This dynamic inspired another line of research and exploration. How do these dolphins find food and have calves, but avoid getting eaten? Were they as surprised as we were by the killer whales? Does the presence of killer whales cause stress or drive changes in their daily activities? Our photographs show a fraction of the scars dolphins bear from killer whale teeth that reveals a sizeable fraction of dolphins actually survive these attacks. Interviews with people who have spent a lot of time with whales and dolphins have taught me that in fact, killer whales are only successful about half the time they attack Pacific white-sided dolphins. Oddly enough, Pacific white-sided dolphins spend a fair amount of time with the sympatric, resident, or exclusively fish-eating killer whales that also call these waters home. Although it appears the dolphins are a nuisance to fish-eating killer whales, I believe these interactions give dolphins the opportunity to literally size up their predators - the mammal-eating, or Bigg's killer whales.

I started my PhD expecting, to be honest, to find that fisheries interactions were impacting the dolphins I study. I learned quickly that the primal quests of finding food and avoiding predators were far larger drivers than humans of Pacific white-sided dolphin ecology. Countless years of evolutionary forces have shaped cetacean physiology and behaviour, and killer whale predation pressure is a significant force. Human activities are an important factor in the daily lives of Pacific white-sided dolphins, but they seem unlikely to be the most important factor. We know that many small cetaceans respond to human activities and disturbance such as ocean noise, but it is impossible to forget that these disturbances are taking place in a predator-prey framework.

How do these dolphins find food and have calves, but avoid getting eaten? Were they as surprised as we were by the killer whales?

Our work is examining the relationships among herring, dolphins, and orca in more detail, in an ecosystem where the threat of predation is ever-present for dolphins.

Our work is examining the relationships among herring, dolphins, and orca in more detail, in an ecosystem where the threat of predation is ever-present for dolphins. Our long-term photo-identification study is allowing us to build upon decades of abundance and survival estimates to place natural and anthropogenic factors into population dynamics models and rank research priorities. We are assessing dolphin health by collecting their exhaled breath on agar petri dish plates. This effort will help advance our understanding of exposure to pathogens - funguses, bacteria, and viruses - in free-living dolphins and their environment. This may give us an early warning if a viral outbreak threatens survival of the critically endangered southern resident killer whales. Although bycatch is no longer considered a major threat to Pacific white-sided dolphins in my study area, rapid assessment and mitigation remains a research priority for cetaceans globally. We are testing pingers, or devices that emit alarm sounds to help deter dolphins from fishing nets, so they can be applied in the high-seas fisheries that first inspired my work on this species. Over the years, this exploration has revealed what the pioneering cetacean researcher, Dr Ken Norris, referred to as the need to discover "little truths" about poorly studied species. These little truths can be synthesised over time, as new information becomes available. Together, this can inform conservation and protection for cetaceans whose vast, offshore habitats may make them inaccessible to study, but still exposed to impacts from fisheries, oil and gas exploration, and naval sonar exercises.

Some of these little truths have led to big changes. It turns out they are not lags at all, but sags. Shortly after our daughter was born, I convened an international workshop with scientists from around the globe to reassess the Lagenorhynchus genus. As we shared our little truths about this genus, we realised that a taxonomic revision of the genus was in order. The workshop findings spurred an interdisciplinary effort with geneticists and taxonomists to reclassify the genus. It turns out that my study animal has been called by the wrong name for more than a century, and we tentatively proposed resurrecting the genus name, Sagmatias, until we can collect a few more genetic samples from the even lesser known hourglass dolphin in Antarctica to resolve this branch of the cetacean evolutionary tree.

More than a decade after Rob and I were married, we've named hundreds of individual dolphins in our study area. Catalysing efforts to rename the genus, Sagmatias, was far more satisfying. Now, when I spot the dolphins, I say slyly to my husband, "Cool! Sags!" As we bring our daughter into the field each season, I'm reminded that the conservation ethic that inspired the study still motivates my work. My hope and aim now is to do what I can to ensure that, like the stars, Pacific white-sided dolphins are always present on our planet.

Our work is examining the relationships among herring, dolphins, and orca in more detail, in an ecosystem where the threat of predation is ever-present for dolphins.

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Little truths: Studying Pacific white-sided dolphins in British Columbia - Oceanographic

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Photographs by Erin Ashe & Ryan Tidman We all have our cetacean story - the first moment we discover that these magical beings exist. Maybe we read about a whale or are lucky enough to see one in the wild. Maybe we see a distant blow on the horizon and that's it.

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Awesome  Spinner Dolphins filmed leaping by Spydolphin!

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DBT Skill: Participate | DBT Center of Orange County

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According to Marsha Linehan, mindfulness is related to the quality of awareness and presence that a person brings to everyday living. She says, “It’s a way of living awake, with eyes wide open. As a set of skills, mindfulness practice is the intentional process of observing, describing, and participating in reality, nonjudgmentally, in the moment,

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DBT Skill: Participate

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Cooperative fishing of humans and dolphins

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Dr. Christina Hibbert | Dr. Christina Hibbert.com

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How to Get Your Needs Met: 4 Tips on Asking & Receiving

Some time back in graduate school I realized that if I don't ask for help when I need it, it might never come. Like so many women, I'd spent the first several years of my marriage expecting my husband, OJ (no, not Simpson), to just "see" what I needed, wanting him to "notice on his own," feeling that if I had to actually tell him what was wrong then he obviously didn't love me well enough. Sound familiar?

We've all seen this before, whether in a friend, on TV or in our own relationships. But friends, I hate to break it to you- if you don't ask for what you need you can't expect to receive it. It's a lesson old as scripture, "Ask and ye shall receive" ( John 16:24). Yet how often do we forget to ask, standing like fools waiting endlessly for a thing that will never come. Instead, try letting go of your expectations and pride and asking. Asking is, after all, the key to receiving.
How to Get Your Needs Met: 4 Tips 1) Before you can ask for what you need, you have to know what you need.
Often we don't ask because we simply don't know. Taking stock of our needs on a regular basis is a good idea for overall well-being in all realms: physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual. The sooner we recognize a need and fill it, the easier life becomes; we end up preventing the bigger problems that arise when needs pile up over time. Thus, examining your needs is an important tool, and the first step of asking for them to be met.
2) Once you know what you need to ask for, state it clearly.
Too often we know what we need but fail in our attempt to communicate it. We beat around the bush, mince words, or hint at what we need, again hoping the other person will just "get it" and take care of things. But people are not mind readers, and most of the time others just aren't good at filling in the blanks. Stating clearly what you need is crucial to actually getting it. The more specific you are, the better. Don't just say, "Honey, I need a nap sometime, maybe." Say, "Honey, I need a nap, so if I go in my room now for an hour would you please watch the kids and actually play with them and guard the door so they won't wake me up?" with a smile of course. (Obviously I have personal experience with this one). Be clear. Be direct. Be willing to ask for exactly what you need.
3) Ask the right person.
Not everyone is equipped to give you exactly what you need. If you need help with childcare, ask someone who loves your child; if you need help with housework, ask someone who knows how to make a bed. If you need someone to just listen, ask someone who can let you be the focus of the conversation for a while. Just because one person isn't able to provide what you need doesn't mean you shouldn't be asking. Keep asking until you find the one willing and able to serve you best. Also, don't be afraid of "putting them out" or "burdening them". Just as it is your responsibility to take care of what you need, they are responsible for their needs and can say no if they choose. As one of my favorite wise men once said, "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs."[1] Allowing others to meet our needs blesses them with the opportunity to serve and grow too. It's a win-win situation.
4) And finally: Don't forget to ask your Higher Power.
Connecting to the Source that knows and understands your needs better than anyone is the surest way to receive what you need. Sometimes it comes as a change in how you feel or in a whisper that lets you know you're not alone and that you are loved. Sometimes it's a sudden knowing-that light-bulb moment of what you must do, or the motivation, perhaps, to actually do it. It may come in the form of a dream, a song, or a piece of art that speaks to your soul. Or it may be a feeling of peace that sweeps over you, a quiet sense that everything will be ok. The act of asking is an act of faith, and, faith is the beginning of all things that come into being.
Ask and Receive
You'll be amazed how easily your needs can be met if you simply ask. Get clear on what you need. Seek out the person to best help you fill that need. Seek the Divine. And ask. Then, stand, ready to receive.

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.drchristinahibbert.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/square-head-shot1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Clinical Psychologist, Mom of 6, Postpartum Couples DVD Producer, Non-Profit Founder, and expert on Parenting, Women's Emotions, Pregnancy & Postpartum, and Grief & Loss, Dr. Christina Hibbert loves songwriting, learning, and teaching what she learns. She's worked very hard over the years to ask for what she needs, and is finally feeling like she's actually pretty good at it. And that, she sees, is good for everyone.[/author_info] [/author]

Have you ever struggled to identify and get your needs met? Do you ever feel like you don't know how to do it, or like you might not even deserve it? Leave a comment, below, and let us know your thoughts and tips on asking and receiving.

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How to Get Your Needs Met: 4 Tips on Asking & Receiving | Dr. Christina Hibbert

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I hate to break it to you-if you don't ask for what you need you can't expect to receive it. It's a lesson old as scripture, "Ask and ye shall receive"...

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Some Like It Hot: Thermoregulation in Sea Lions - Comox Valley Nature

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Article contributed by CVN member Véronique McIntyre. Ah, this is so nice! Lying on my back, my tail and my pectoral fin lifted up above water, I am letting my body temperature reach the 36 degrees I love. No, I … Continue reading →

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Some Like It Hot: Thermoregulation in Sea Lions

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When emotions become overwhelming, it can feel impossible to think clearly or calm down. That's where TIPP, a powerful distress tolerance skill from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), comes in. TIPP stands for Temperature, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing, and Paired Muscle Relaxation, all designed to regulate emotions quickly by targeting the body's physiological state. Among these, temperature is one of the fastest ways to activate the body's calming response. By exposing your face or body to cold, you engage the dive reflex, which slows your heart rate, reduces panic, and helps shift out of emotional distress. Whether you're dealing with anxiety, anger, or emotional overwhelm, learning to use temperature effectively can provide immediate relief. We will explore the science behind temperature regulation, the traditional DBT ice-water technique, and alternative ways to use cold exposure when you need quick emotional grounding. Click here to learn how Name It to Tame It can help with emotional regulation.

What is the Dive Reflex

The mammalian dive reflex is a fascinating biological response that activates when cold water comes into contact with the face. This reflex, found in many mammals-including humans-triggers an automatic slowing of the heart rate, known as bradycardia, and engages the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps the body shift into a calmer state.

In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the dive reflex is a powerful distress tolerance skill. When emotions become overwhelming, using temperature strategically can provide instant relief, helping to regulate intense feelings such as panic, anxiety, anger, or distress. By activating the body's natural calming mechanisms, this technique allows individuals to regain control and think more clearly in crisis situations.

Whether you're dealing with emotional intensity, intrusive thoughts, or overwhelming stress, leveraging the dive reflex can be an accessible and effective way to bring your nervous system back to baseline. In this post, we'll explore different ways to use temperature-based techniques-even beyond the traditional ice-water dunk-to support emotional regulation and distress tolerance.

The Science Behind It

The mammalian dive reflex is an evolutionary survival mechanism designed to help mammals conserve oxygen while submerged in water. When the face is exposed to cold temperatures, particularly around the eyes and nose, the body automatically triggers a series of physiological changes that promote relaxation and calm.
How Cold Activates the Vagus Nerve
One of the key players in this process is the vagus nerve, which runs from the brainstem down through the heart, lungs, and digestive system. The vagus nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which counteracts the body's "fight-or-flight" response. When stimulated by cold temperatures, it sends signals to:

Slow the heart rate (bradycardia) - Reducing the intensity of emotional and physical distress.

Lower blood pressure - Helping the body transition from an aroused, anxious state to a calmer one.

Shift the nervous system toward "rest-and-digest" mode - Allowing for clearer thinking and emotional regulation.

The Physiological Effects of the Dive Reflex
This response happens quickly, making it a fast-acting tool for distress tolerance. The main effects include:

Slower heart rate - Reduces the racing heartbeat associated with anxiety and panic attacks.

Reduced oxygen demand - The body adapts to conserve energy, leading to an overall calming effect.

Increased sense of calm - Helps override the body's stress response, creating a moment of emotional relief.

By engaging the body's built-in relaxation system, cold exposure through the dive reflex can be an effective way to regain control during moments of intense emotional distress. In the next section, we'll explore the traditional ice-water dunk and alternative ways to harness temperature for emotional regulation.

Traditional Use: Ice Water Dunking

One of the most effective ways to activate the dive reflex is through ice water dunking, a core distress tolerance skill used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). This technique provides almost instant relief from overwhelming emotions by rapidly shifting the body into a calmer state.
How to Do It:

Fill a bowl or sink with cold water - The water should be very cold, ideally with ice cubes added.

Take a deep breath and hold it.

Submerge your face in the water for 30 seconds - Focus on ensuring the area around your eyes, nose, and forehead is fully submerged.

Come up for air and repeat as needed.

Why It Works Instantly for Emotional Regulation
By shocking the nervous system with cold water, this technique immediately:

Activates the dive reflex - Slows the heart rate and engages the parasympathetic nervous system.

Reduces intense emotions - Helps regulate panic, anger, dissociation, and overwhelming distress.

Interrupts the "fight-or-flight" response - Shifts the body from a state of high emotional reactivity to a calmer, more manageable baseline.

Provides a physical distraction - The intense sensation of cold can redirect focus away from emotional pain or distress.

For those experiencing extreme emotional dysregulation, ice water dunking can serve as a temporary reset, allowing for clearer thinking and better decision-making. However, since submerging your face in cold water isn't always practical, there are alternative ways to achieve similar effects-let's explore those next.

Alternative Ways to Use Temperature for Distress Tolerance

Not everyone has access to a sink full of ice water when emotions become overwhelming. Fortunately, there are several alternative ways to harness the power of cold for distress tolerance that are more convenient and accessible in daily life. These methods still engage the dive reflex and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping to regulate emotions effectively.
1. Cold Compress on the Face
Place an ice pack, frozen washcloth, or a bag of frozen peas on your cheeks, around the eyes, and on the forehead. The cold targets the same facial nerves activated during ice-water dunking, helping to slow the heart rate and promote calmness.

Best for: Anxiety, panic attacks, and emotional overwhelm when you need quick relief but can't fully submerge your face.
2. Holding an Ice Cube
Gripping an ice cube in your hand can serve as a grounding technique while still triggering a mild cold response in the nervous system. Focus on the intense sensation to shift your attention away from distressing emotions.

Best for: Urges related to self-harm, dissociation, and emotional numbing.
3. Cold Shower or Splashing Cold Water
If dunking your face isn't an option, taking a cold shower or splashing your face with cold water can offer similar benefits. The shock of cold water stimulates the vagus nerve, helping to calm the body quickly.

Best for: High emotional arousal, frustration, and feeling stuck in a fight-or-flight response.
4. Cooling Wrist or Neck Wraps
Applying a cold wrap or ice pack to your wrists, neck, or behind the ears can help regulate body temperature and lower emotional intensity by cooling the blood as it circulates.

Best for: Stress, anger, and emotional overheating in situations where facial exposure isn't ideal.
5. Using a Cooling Face Mask or Gel Pack
A cooling gel mask (often used for headaches or puffiness) provides a gentler, longer-lasting cooling effect. This is a great alternative for those who find ice water too intense or uncomfortable but still want the benefits of temperature regulation.

Best for: Chronic stress, sensory overload, and nighttime anxiety.

These alternative temperature-based techniques offer flexibility in distress tolerance, making it easier to access relief anytime, anywhere. Experiment with different methods to find what works best for you!

When to Use These Techniques

Temperature-based distress tolerance techniques can be powerful tools for emotional regulation in moments of overwhelming intensity. Since they work quickly by engaging the body's natural calming reflexes, they are especially useful when emotions feel unmanageable or out of control.
1. During Panic Attacks, Intense Anger, or Emotional Flooding
When emotions escalate rapidly, it can be difficult to think clearly. Cold exposure helps interrupt the fight-or-flight response, slowing down the heart rate and reducing feelings of panic, rage, or distress.

Example: If you feel like you're about to have a panic attack, pressing an ice pack on your face or running cold water over your wrists can help ground you in the present moment.
2. When You Need Immediate Emotional Regulation Before Problem-Solving
Sometimes, strong emotions cloud judgment, making it hard to respond effectively to a situation. Using cold as a quick reset can give you the space to regain control before making decisions.

Example: If you're feeling overwhelmed by stress or conflict, a cold compress or ice cube can help lower emotional intensity so you can approach the problem with a clearer mindset.
3. If Struggling with Self-Harm Urges or Impulsivity
For those experiencing self-harm urges or impulsive thoughts, the intense sensation of cold can act as a safe and non-harmful substitute while also calming the nervous system.

Example: Instead of acting on an impulse, squeezing an ice cube, taking a cold shower, or placing a cold pack on your skin can provide a strong sensory experience that redirects focus and relieves distress.

By understanding when to use these techniques, you can integrate them into your distress tolerance toolbox-helping you navigate intense emotions in a healthy, effective way.

Safety Considerations

While temperature-based distress tolerance techniques can be highly effective, they aren't suitable for everyone and should be used with caution in certain situations.
1. People with Heart Conditions Should Consult a Doctor
Cold exposure triggers a sudden drop in heart rate, which can be risky for individuals with heart conditions, low blood pressure, or circulation issues. If you have a heart condition, speak with a healthcare provider before using ice-water dunking or extreme cold therapy.
2. Avoid Prolonged Exposure to Extreme Cold
Using ice or cold water for too long can lead to skin damage, frostbite, or headaches. To stay safe:

Limit direct ice exposure to 20-30 seconds at a time (especially on sensitive areas like the face or hands).

Use a cloth barrier between ice packs and skin to prevent irritation.

If you feel dizzy, lightheaded, or experience pain, stop immediately.

3. Not a Long-Term Solution
While cold exposure is an effective immediate tool, it should be used alongside other DBT distress tolerance strategies, such as:

Mindfulness - Becoming aware of emotions without judgment.

Radical Acceptance - Acknowledging reality instead of resisting distress.

Self-Soothing & Grounding - Using touch, scent, or movement to regulate emotions.

Opposite Action - Acting opposite to the emotional urge (e.g., engaging in kindness when feeling anger).

Cold-based techniques provide short-term relief, but they don't address the root cause of distress. Pair them with therapy, coping strategies, and emotional processing techniques for lasting change. By using temperature safely and intentionally, you can make it a valuable tool for emotional regulation while minimizing risks.

Making Temperature Work for You

Temperature-based distress tolerance techniques can be a powerful and accessible way to regulate emotions when they feel overwhelming. Since everyone responds differently to cold exposure, it's important to experiment with different methods to find what works best for you.
Tips for Maximizing Effectiveness

Pair cold exposure with mindful breathing - Try slow, deep breaths while using an ice pack or splashing cold water to enhance the calming effect.

Notice how your body responds - Pay attention to how each technique affects your emotions and physical state. Some may work better for panic, while others help with anger or stress.

Use cold techniques as part of a larger coping toolkit - Combine them with mindfulness, grounding, and self-compassion for a more balanced approach to distress tolerance.

The best way to know if these techniques work for you is to try one today. Pick a method-whether it's holding an ice cube, using a cold compress, or splashing your face with cold water-and observe how your body reacts. Emotional regulation is a skill that improves with practice. The more you incorporate temperature-based techniques into your routine, the more effective they'll become in moments of high distress.

More Resources

If you are interested in learning more, click here. For more information on this topic, we recommend the following:

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The DBT Deck for Clients and Therapists: 101 Mindful Practices to Manage Distress, Regulate Emotions & Build Better Relationships Master Your Emotions - A DBT Guide and Skills Workbook for Adults
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Dive Reflex: Alternative Way to Use Temperature for Distress Tolerance

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Discover how cold exposure activates the dive reflex to quickly calm distress, reduce panic, and regulate emotions using the DBT TIPP technique.

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TIPP: Changing Your Body Chemistry | DBT Self Help

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TIPP: Changing Your Body Chemistry

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SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

It can be hard to find a moment to just rest. And when you can find the time, you might feel like you should be working on something instead. But rest can be a form of resistance.

TRICIA HERSEY: I don't want to be under the guise of believing that I have to be productive in order to be deemed worthy. I am enough now.

MCCAMMON: Tricia Hersey founded The Nap Ministry back in 2016. She uses performance art, social media and photography to promote the healing power of rest. She's the author of "Rest Is Resistance." And for NPR's Life Kit, Shereen Marisol Meraji spoke with Hersey, starting with the four tenets of The Nap Ministry.

SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI, BYLINE: Tenet No. 1.

HERSEY: Rest is a form of resistance because it pushes back and disrupts white supremacy and capitalism.

MERAJI: No. 2.

HERSEY: Our bodies are a site of liberation. And that brings into the somatics the idea that wherever our bodies are, we can find rest.

MERAJI: Three.

HERSEY: Naps provide a portal to imagine, invent and heal.

MERAJI: And tenet No. 4.

HERSEY: Our dream space has been stolen, and we want it back. We will reclaim it via rest.

MERAJI: I really want to talk more about tenet No. 1 - rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy. This book is so much more than encouraging people to take naps (laughter).

HERSEY: Oh, my God. This is about more than naps. Thank you for saying that. I say it so much. It's a paradigm shift. It's mind-altering. It's culture-shifting. It's a full-on politics of refusal. We have been brainwashed by this system to believe these things about rest, about our bodies, about our worth, this violent culture that wants to see us working 24 hours a day, that doesn't view us as a human being but instead views our divine bodies as a machine.

And so when I think about the first tenet and this idea of disrupting and pushing back, for me, when we are on - in a system that we're on that's under capitalism that doesn't look at people as people - they look at profit. White supremacy - they don't see the divinity in all of us. And so these two systems working in collaboration, we can push back against them. But even if we're off the clock and saying no intentionally for 10 minutes, our insistence on being like, not today, you can't have me for these 30 minutes, this little, small disruption - I'm thinking about my ancestors who slowed down production in cotton fields and who did these - this quiet quitting that's happening. You've been hearing about this idea of quiet quitting where people are going to work but not giving...

MERAJI: I have.

HERSEY: ...As much. Yeah. And so I feel like it's all in this same idea of disruption, of pushing back, of saying no.

MERAJI: Let's go back to our brainwashing.

HERSEY: Yes.

MERAJI: Because I 100% am a victim of this brainwashing, especially the thing that you talk about where, you know, we think that the more we do, the more worth we have.

HERSEY: Yes.

MERAJI: I am 100% guilty of that kind of thinking. So, Tricia, how do I deprogram? How do I...

HERSEY: Yeah, I know.

MERAJI: ...Stop thinking that the more I produce, the more I do, the...

HERSEY: I get it.

MERAJI: ...More I say yes...

HERSEY: I know.

MERAJI: ...The more worth I have?

HERSEY: What I will say to you is that it's going to be slow. It is not going to be a quick tip advice that I can give you and just be like, this is going to work for you. It's really going to be a slow uncovering, a slow mercy and grace towards yourself. I tell people to rest through the guilt, take it slow, be aware, be aware that it's happening, and then start to go deeper into the wells of yourself to begin to see what could help to help you heal. Like, this work is about listening and about connecting with the body.

MERAJI: Tricia, what are the health benefits from taking the time to prioritize rest, from napping?

HERSEY: Yes. You know, I talk a lot about my divinity degree, but I have a undergrad degree in public health and community health. So I know the beauty of looking at this message from the science of sleep. The CDC have named sleep deprivation as a public health crisis. Three of the top diseases - high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes - can be linked back to sleep deprivation. And so when we aren't sleeping, our organs don't have a chance to regenerate. And then from a brain level, when we sleep, the brain is, like, bathed in this chemical that helps people to, like, process trauma. And it helps your creativity, memory retention, and you're able to, like, really heal your body.

So I tell people, maybe this work can't land in your mind and spirit from a political level, maybe you can't right now jump on the whole spiritual idea of it, but just to look at what is happening from a health level, from biologically, from neurologically, what we're doing to our bodies when we're exhausted, when we're burnt out. Over a sustained amount of time, it is killing us. It is causing more disease to take root in our bodies. It's not allowing us to live to our full potential.

MERAJI: So for all those bodies out there who just - they just have to be doing something...

HERSEY: Yeah, yeah.

MERAJI: ...In order to feel alive...

HERSEY: Yes.

MERAJI: ...Like, how do they - how do we force our bodies to rest, to stop?

HERSEY: I think the idea of active rest - anything that can slow your body down enough that you can connect with your body and mind - and so it was taking dance classes and ballet and somatic dance classes when I was in graduate school. And I found that to be one of the most ultimate forms of rest when I was learning how to spin and do turns and, you know, moving my body. So I really thought that dancing was really a beautiful, active form of rest for me. I love walking and being in nature, you know, just being able to, like, move your body in a way that is slowed down and isn't being moved for the idea of labor.

You know, when I think about hobbies and how everyone is, like, monetizing their hobbies right now, and I'm like, no, that's capitalism telling you...

MERAJI: Yeah.

HERSEY: ...That you need to, like, monetize crocheting. Like, my sister is a beautiful fiber artist, and she says to her, that's the most meditative, restful state, when she's crocheting blankets for people. And she refuses to sell them. She's like, if I do that...

MERAJI: It'll be stressful.

HERSEY: ...Then it will become capitalism, making it not fun. And it's all linked back to trying to make money. She does it for the meditation, for the connection and because she loves to do it.

MERAJI: There's this point you make in the book, which for me is so key. You say resting and recharging and rejuvenating is not so that we can grind more. It's not so that we can prepare ourselves to, you know, give more output to capitalism. That is not actually what this is about...

HERSEY: Not at all.

MERAJI: ...At all.

HERSEY: Not at all. People get it twisted and think that's what it's about because a lot of corporations are pushing this idea. They're saying, have our employees rest more. You guys can have a nap room here so that you can be more productive when you come to work, so that we can pay less in health insurance premiums. So we're not resting to get ourselves more riled up to be on capitalism's clock. We are resting simply because it is our divine and human right to do so. Period. There is no - nothing else on the end of that sentence. It is the end of it.

MCCAMMON: That was Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry speaking with Shereen Marisol Meraji for NPR's Life Kit.

And if you're feeling a bit more rested and thinking about the changes you want to make in 2023, check out Life Kit's resolution planner. The tool helps you mix and match over 40 ideas for resolutions, including some to improve your mental health. It's at npr.org/newyears.

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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How to think about rest as a form of resistance

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SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST: It can be hard to find a moment to just rest. And when you can find the time, you might feel like you should be working on something instead. But rest can be a form of resistance.

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@oceanconnections
Replying to @Melissa Seals and sea lions are covered in fur and they feel like a short haired dog! #sealsoftiktok #oceanconnections #nonreleasable #sealtok #bellyrubs
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River dolphins are especially susceptible to negative human impacts. For their conservation, attempts of relocation or procreation ex situ may become important in the future to avoid their extinction. Additional knowledge and medical experiences of river dolphin management in captivity may aid such conservation efforts. The medical records and necropsy and histopathology reports on 123 captive Amazon River dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) were reviewed. Of these 123 animals, 105 were necropsied and 70 necropsies were supported with histopathology. Eighteen animals were not necropsied. Among wild-born animals, mortality was highest in the first 2 mo immediately postcapture and transport, accounting for 32 of 123 deaths. Pneumonia and skin lesions (cutaneous and subcutaneous ulcerations and abscesses) were the most common findings, found in 44 of 105 (42%) and 38 of 105 (36%) of gross diagnoses, respectively. At least 10 of 44 cases of pneumonia diagnosed grossly included a verminous component. Cachexia, from a variety of causes, was a major gross finding in 21 animals. Fifteen animals had histologic evidence of significant renal pathology, and this was the primary cause of death in 13 cases. Hepatic pathology was found in 18 cases, and bacterial sepsis was confirmed via histology in 16 cases. Based on these findings, it may be concluded that keys to successful maintenance of this species include 1) prophylactic anthelminthic and antibiotic therapy immediately post capture; 2) maintenance of animals in larger enclosures than in past attempts, in compatible groups, and in facilities capable of separating aggressive animals; 3) maintenance in microbiologically hygienic water quality at all times; and 4) a proactive program of preventive medicine during the immediate postcapture, quarantine, and maintenance period of captivity.

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Minke whales may hide from surveyors in broken-up sea ice, making tracking these animals difficult.

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Many of my White brothers and sisters do not fully appreciate the lived experience of people of color; that their lives are filled with constant slights, indignities and invalidations from well-intentioned strangers, neighbors and friends. As a second-generation Asian American, born and raised in the United States, I recall countless instances of being considered an outsider. These interactions began in early childhood, particularly in elementary school. Although I enjoyed courses in U. S. history and social studies, I seldom fully connected with the class material; I always felt like an interloper or outcast.

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The placenta was the trickiest part. How to dispose of it without it making a mess that would alert the guards that a child had just been born in a prison cell?

There was no medical equipment, no painkillers, no sterilized wipes or hygienic materials of any sort. When it came to cutting the umbilical cord in the absence of scissors, well, that was the easy part: just use your teeth.

But Debbie Sims Africa was more stressed about the placenta. It was 1978, she was 22 years old and five weeks into what would turn out to be a 40-year prison sentence.

She was determined to give birth on her own without any involvement of the jail officers so she could spend some precious time with the baby. In the end, a co-defendant helped her out, scooping up the placenta in her hands and secreting it to the shower room where she flushed it down the prison toilet.

The plan worked. Debbie Africa got to spend three wonderful days with her baby son. She hid him under a sheet and when he cried, other jailed women would stand outside the cell and sing or cough to obscure the noise.

She knew it couldn't last, as jail rules prohibited mothers being with their children. At the end of the three days she informed the jailers of the baby's existence and, once they had got over their astonishment, they arranged for the mother and son to be separated and for the child to be taken to the outside world.

So begins the extraordinary life of Mike Africa Jr, a man born in a prison cell, and his incarcerated parents. As he approaches his 40th birthday in September, he reflects on what a crazy ride it's been.

Mike Davis Africa Jr. Photograph: Ed Pilkington/The Guardian

He was born to a mother accused and later convicted of third-degree murder in one of the most dramatic confrontations with law enforcement of the 1970s black liberation struggle. Not only was Debbie Africa sentenced to 30 years to life for the death of a police officer, so too was her husband, Mike Africa Sr, father to Mike Jr, who was caught up in the same confrontation and given the same punishment.

Which makes Mike Jr a penal orphan of the black power movement. For almost 40 years, he visited both his parents in separate penitentiaries but never saw either of them outside prison walls. Last month Debbie was finally released from prison on parole, but his father remains in captivity and to this day he has never seen the two of them together.

Debbie and Mike Sr, both now 62, are two of the Move Nine, the group of black radicals who were collectively held responsible for the death of Officer James Ramp during a massive police shoot-out at their communal home in Powelton Village, Philadelphia on 8 August 1978. The group, whose members take "Africa" as their last name as a political badge, were resisting eviction.

They were like the Black Panthers crossed with nature-loving hippies. Black ​power meets flower power

Move was one of the more extraordinary elements of the 1970s black liberation struggle. Deeply committed to fighting police brutality in African American communities, they were also devoted to caring for animals and the environment.

They were like the Black Panthers crossed with nature-loving hippies. Black power meets flower power.

They lived in a communal house along with dozens of stray dogs and cats where they would preach their political beliefs day and night at high volume through bullhorns, driving their neighbors to despair. Over time they came to be seen as dangerous non-conformists by the Philadelphia police and city government, leading to a drawn-out confrontation that culminated in the 1978 siege and gunfight involving hundreds of police that saw the death of Officer Ramp and sent nine of the black radicals to prison, potentially for life.

The Move Nine were accused of firing the first shot and of killing Ramp. Yet they have always claimed innocence. They deny that they shot at anybody and blame the officer's death on accidental "friendly fire" from other armed police. Ramp, 52, was a former marine who had served with the Philadelphia police department for 23 years. He was killed by a single bullet. Yet all nine Move members were convicted of his murder.

Move members in front of their house in the Powelton Village section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Leif Skoogfors/Corbis via Getty Images

I met Debbie Africa and her son as part of research into incarcerated black radicals that began more than two years ago. The starting point was the Angola Three, former Black Panthers who had endured unprecedented stretches in solitary confinement in Louisiana's notorious Angola prison.

That began a journey that would bring me to interview several members of the Move Nine as well as former Black Panthers and members of the Black Liberation Army who remain incarcerated in some cases half a century after their arrests. It would culminate with a day spent with Debbie and Mike Jr, mother and son, as they celebrated their first time together beyond prison walls.

Debbie Africa was eight months pregnant during the 1978 siege. During the shoot-out she was holed out in the basement of the Move house, where she was bombarded by water cannons and tear gas and had to fumble her way out in the dark carrying her first child, her two-year-old daughter Michelle.

No evidence was presented at trial that she pulled the trigger or ever touched a gun. But she was convicted nonetheless as a murderer and conspirator.

Mike Sr remains behind bars in Graterford correctional institution in Pennsylvania. But last June, Debbie Africa became one of very few black liberationists convicted of violent acts from the 1970s to be released on parole having convinced the board she was no threat to society.

Debbie and Mike Jr talked to me at his home in a small town outside Philadelphia just two weeks after she had been released on parole from Cambridge Springs prison. They were both still clearly awestruck to be in each other's company after so long - Mike's sporadic prison visits to both his parents were nothing like this.

It's the little things that have dumbfounded Mike Jr most. The first morning after they got back to his house, they were sitting at breakfast wearing no shoes.

"It was the first time I've ever seen her feet, and it was the first time she'd ever seen my feet since I was three days old in her cell," he said.

Debbie Africa and her son, Mike Africa, in Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Mark Makela/The Guardian

Debbie Africa described waves of overpowering emotion. "I can't believe this is happening," she said. "I'll just start hugging him in the supermarket and people will be giving us strange looks."

She talked about the wrench of letting her son go when he was three days old. "It was a hard, hard decision. I wanted what was best for him and I knew that was not to get close to me at any level. So I had to break the bond."

Mike Jr was raised during his childhood by his grandmother and by a succession of different female members of the Move organization as part of its communal ethic. "I was a community kid, I had many mothers," Mike Jr said in a deadpan voice, as though describing the weather.

Every Mother's Day he makes the rounds of his "mothers". He drives around bearing cards and flowers which he drops off at the homes of at least six women. He rattled off their names: Bert, Sue, Romana, Pam, Mary, Teresa.

Now he'll be able to put flowers in the hands of his true birth mother. He had no idea who she was, nor who his father was, until he was about six or seven when their relationship to him was made clear to him.

"I didn't know she was in prison, I didn't know any of it. I thought that the person caring for me was my mother."

He looks back on his childhood and recognizes that some aspects of his upbringing were less than ideal. "Who teaches a kid how to brush his teeth or take a bath but his parents. I didn't know how to wash my hair 'til I was 15."

Through his childhood he was taken to visit both parents in separate prisons, maybe once or twice a year. But for years he had no idea why they were locked up. When friends at school asked about him about them, he would demur or make up stories because he was embarrassed to reveal his ignorance.

I feel relief. Big relief. I never knew she would come out alive

Mike Africa Jr

It was only when he was 14 and sitting with his father in Graterford that the penny dropped. He asked Mike Sr whether there was anybody held in the prison who had done something really bad, like killing somebody.

"Yeah," Mike Sr replied, "me".

"He didn't go on to explain," Mike Jr recalled. "I was frightened. Was he going to be in here forever? I was crying my eyes out trying to figure it out, but I couldn't explain to him why I was crying. I couldn't put it into words."

Mikr Jr said it took him years to put the pieces together. "I was left to figure it out for myself, to fend for myself."

But neither son nor mother are ones to dwell on the wounds of the past. I asked Debbie Africa whether she regretted that by her actions as a black liberationist and Move member she had put her son through so much pain.

"There are always going to be things in my life that I wish didn't happen," she said. "I do truly wish that what happened to my son hadn't happened, I do truly. But I look at the man he is now, and I love it."

Father and son, Mike Davis Africa Sr and Jr, in Huntingdon state correctional institution in 1993. Mike was 14. Photograph: Courtesy of Mike Davis Africa Jr

Having spent two days in the company of Mike Africa Jr outside Philadelphia, I can see what she means. He has turned out remarkably poised for someone with his chaotic childhood résumé.

He runs his own small business as a landscape gardener, is married and has four children of his own. He is a proud member of Move, has never owned or even held a gun, and his house is comfortable and full of light, though it was notable how much neater it was the second time I visited following Debbie's release. At last she has begun fulfilling that ritual of parents everywhere: tidying up after their child's mess.

On Mike Jr's part he's similarly delighted his mother has turned out as well-balanced, sociable and positive as she is, given 40 years in correctional institutions. "I feel relief. Big relief. I never knew she would come out alive. When people come out of prison they can be sick in the head, but this transition of her coming to my house has been the smoothest major transformation of my life."

Now the challenge is to help Mike Africa Sr secure parole, and so complete the family. His next appearance before the parole board is in September, and they are all already on tenterhooks.

A paradox of Debbie Africa's release is that under her parole terms she is not able to communicate in any form with her husband because he is classified as a co-defendant and thus is out of bounds. The last time they saw each other in the flesh was in 1986. Since then they had been allowed to write to each other from their cells, and in that way managed to keep their bond alive.

I can't believe this is happening. I'll start hugging him in the supermarket and people will be giving us strange looks

Debbie Sims Africa

Now that the letter-writing has been stopped all they have in terms of connection is Mike Jr acting as a go-between. He lets each parent know how the other is doing. He also acted as my go-between, putting questions to his father which Mike Sr answered in a phone call to him.

How confident is Mike Sr, I asked, as he heads into the parole hearing?

"I'm confident that I'm going to tell the truth. I'm confident that I deserve parole. I'm confident I would never be considered a danger to the community ever again. We never intended for anyone to get hurt, and regret that anyone did get hurt."

Then he added: "What I'm not confident about is what they're going to do, I have no control over that."

He said the knowledge that his wife was now at home with his son and daughter was a great comfort to him. But it also heightened his desire to be with them all.

"Forty years of wanting, anticipating. It's like Double Dutch. You're always on the edge of that jump rope, hopping up and down, waiting to get in, waiting for your turn."

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Born in a cell: the extraordinary tale of the black liberation orphan

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The placenta was the trickiest part. How to dispose of it without it making a mess that would alert the guards that a child had just been born in a prison cell? There was no medical equipment, no painkillers, no sterilized wipes or hygienic materials of any sort.

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Birth Origin Differentially Affects Depressive-Like Behaviours: Are Captive-Born Cynomolgus Monkeys More Vulnerable to Depression than Their Wild-Born Counterparts?

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Adverse early-life experience might lead to the expression of abnormal behaviours in animals and the predisposition to psychiatric disorder (e.g. major depressive disorder) in Humans. Common breeding processes employ weaning and housing conditions…

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"I wonder why sometimes we congregate with those who have been hurt in ways that look similar to how we have been hurt. About how we sometimes (me too) name identities and even whole organizations based on our scars. And how sometimes those of us with similar vulnerabilities are the ones who scar each other. I wonder sometimes about what keeps us close, in a hurting world shaped by intimate violence. In a world that cuts systemically and deep."

Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Undrowned Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals Alexis Pauline Gumbs Aut; Adrienne Maree Brown Introd. AK Press, 2020.

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Fish have the ability to move in any direction in the water. In fact, they have the ability to rise and sink while swimming through the water. What allows a fish to rise and sink? Find out the answer to this question in this article.

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Stone Flake on a Lake - Wise Mind Meditation

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"How do you keep your swim bladder level right so you don’t float out of school formation? How do we know the depth at which life is abundant enough to feed us and our families and communities at once?"

Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Undrowned Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals Alexis Pauline Gumbs Aut; Adrienne Maree Brown Introd. AK Press, 2020.

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The Black Unicorn by Audre Lorde

The black unicorn is greedy.
The black unicorn is impatient.
'The black unicorn was mistaken
for a shadow or symbol
and taken
through a cold country
where mist painted mockeries
of my fury.
It is not on her lap where the horn rests
but deep in her moonpit growing.
The black unicorn is restless
the black unicorn is unrelenting
the black unicorn is not
free.

“The Black Unicorn - Poem by Audre Lorde.” Back to Main Page, famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/audre_lorde/poems/19834. Accessed 13 Mar. 2025.

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Printable Version Enslaved African Americans resisted slavery in a variety of active and passive ways. "Day-to-day resistance" was the most common form of opposition to slavery. Breaking tools, feigning illness, staging slowdowns, and committing acts of arson and sabotage--all were forms of resistance and expression of slaves' alienation from their masters.

Running away was another form of resistance. Most slaves ran away relatively short distances and were not trying to permanently escape from slavery. Instead, they were temporarily withholding their labor as a form of economic bargaining and negotiation. Slavery involved a constant process of negotiation as slaves bargained over the pace of work, the amount of free time they would enjoy, monetary rewards, access to garden plots, and the freedom to practice burials, marriages, and religious ceremonies free from white oversight.

Some fugitives did try to permanently escape slavery. While the idea of escaping slavery quickly brings to mind the Underground Railroad to the free states, in fact more than half of these runaways headed southward or to cities or to natural refuges like swamps. Often, runaways were relatively privileged slaves who had served as river boatmen or coachmen and were familiar with the outside world.

Especially in the colonial period, fugitive slaves tried to form runaway communities known as "maroon colonies." Located in swamps, mountains, or frontier regions, some of these communities resisted capture for several decades.

During the early 18th century there were slave uprisings in Long Island in 1708 and in New York City in 1712. Slaves in South Carolina staged several insurrections, culminating in the Stono Rebellion in 1739, when they seized arms, killed whites, and burned houses. In 1740 and 1741, conspiracies were uncovered in Charleston and New York. During the late 18th century, slave revolts erupted in Guadeloupe, Grenada, Jamaica, Surinam, San Domingue (Haiti), Venezuela, and the Windward Island and many fugitive slaves, known as maroons, fled to remote regions and carried on guerrilla warfare (during the 1820s, a fugitive slave named Bob Ferebee led a band in fugitive slaves in guerrilla warfare in Virginia). During the early 19th century, major conspiracies or revolts against slavery took place in Richmond, Virginia, in 1800; in Louisiana in 1811; in Barbados in 1816; in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1822; in Demerara in 1823; and in Jamaica and in Southampton County, Virginia in 1831.

Slave revolts were most likely when slaves outnumbered whites, when masters were absent, during periods of economic distress, and when there was a split within the ruling elite. They were also most common when large numbers of native-born Africans had been brought into an area at one time.

The main result of slave insurrections was the mass executions of blacks. After a slave conspiracy was uncovered in New York City in 1740, 18 slaves were hanged and 13 were burned alive. After Denmark Vesey's conspiracy was uncovered, the authorities in Charleston hanged 37 blacks. Following Nat Turner's insurrection, the local militia killed about 100 blacks and 20 more slaves, including Turner, were later executed. In the South, the preconditions for successful rebellion did not exist, and tended to bring increased suffering and repression to the slave community.

Violent rebellion was rarer and smaller in scale in the American South than in Brazil or the Caribbean, reflecting the relatively small proportion of blacks in the southern population, the low proportion of recent migrants from Africa, and the relatively small size of southern plantations. Compared to the Caribbean, prospects for successful sustained rebellions in the American South were bleak. In Jamaica, slaves outnumbered whites by ten or eleven to one; in the South, a much larger white population was committed to suppressing rebellion. In general, Africans were more likely than slaves born in the New World to participate in outright revolts. Not only did many Africans have combat experience prior to enslavement, but they also had fewer family and community ties that might inhibit violent insurrection.

Copyright 2021 Digital History

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Printable Version Enslaved African Americans resisted slavery in a variety of active and passive ways. "Day-to-day resistance" was the most common form of opposition to slavery. Breaking tools, feigning illness, staging slowdowns, and committing acts of arson and sabotage--all were forms of resistance and expression of slaves' alienation from their masters.

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Express Political Outrage Skillfully: Alternate Rebellion

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Election 2024 is stirring up powerful emotions. Alternate rebellion is a DBT skill that channels that anger constructively. Rebelling skillfully gives your outrage a platform.

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Dugong (Dugong dugon) swimming underwater, Coron Island, Phillipines.

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Continuous activity in cetaceans after birth: The exceptional wakefulness of newborn whales and dolphins has no ill-effect on their development

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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Jan 26.

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"Sometimes she floats on her back, makes herself into a raft for her babies, usually twins, sometimes triplets, quadruplets. She lives in a hard place and in between rocks. She puts her back to the future and her face to her children."

Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Undrowned Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals Alexis Pauline Gumbs Aut; Adrienne Maree Brown Introd. AK Press, 2020.

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Sea otters give birth in the water and can spend their whole lives without ever leaving the water. To care for her young, a mother sea otter places her newborn on her belly, grooming it from head to tail. (Photo: (c) Mark Seth Lender) Mother sea otters spend a lot of time grooming their young pups. It's a bonding experience as well as a matter of survival. Clean and well-groomed fur keeps these sea otters afloat on the coastal waters where they spend their entire lives. Living on Earth's Explorer-in-Residence Mark Seth Lender narrates a precious scene of an attentive otter mom and her young pup.
Transcript

BASCOMB: Oysters and other shellfish can be a staple food for many marine species including sea otters. Living On Earth's Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender has our story.

Mother and Son
Southern Sea Otter
Elkhorn Slough, Monterey Bay
© 2021 Mark Seth Lender
All Rights Reserved

In the narrowed channel, slack tide, a mat of kelp or weed or salt grass floats along, without a notion of its own, captured by the absent-minded tug and turn of eddies at slack tide between the sand bars. It drifts, closer. Then shifts, further. Catching in a spiral of water turning, turning until...

Recognition!

Mother and Son Sea Otter!

The baby is newborn, one week, maybe two. Round and wet, unable to fend for himself. Cannot care for himself. His mother washing, scrubbing, rubbing, combing every inch of him. And when she finishes one end, working from the long spiky fur of his tail, she turns him on the Lazy Susan of her belly and starts all over the opposite way, from his sweet wet face on down. He opens his eyes. He has a sleepy look. She props him up on a cushion of water and dives, and comes back with a clam she breaks open and divides but does not share with him.

He is too young. But soon...

Then sea clam will be food to him, the taste he will follow all his life. When he is older and stronger and heavy enough he will learn to follow her down and down to the cloudy bottom, and recognize the shapes and smells and take a stone and crack the shell. There will be a lot to learn. He is lucky. She will as mother otters do take the time to teach him.

As much, and as long, as he needs.

BASCOMB: That's Living on Earth's Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender.

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Living on Earth / World Media Foundation / Public Radio International

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Living on Earth: Mother and Son: Sea Otter Bonding

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mother sea otters spend a lot of time grooming their young pups. It's a bonding experience as well as a matter of survival. Clean and well-groomed fur keeps these sea otters afloat on the coastal waters where they spend their entire lives.

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The trauma of racism is unique. So is this therapy.